MRS COHEN’S DIARY
I HAD a lovely chat with Madge last week. She was worried because she had been called up for jury service in New York and was unsure how to proceed, what with her being one of the world’s iconic women and jury rooms being rather smelly places. I told her to march in there defiantly, possibly an hour or so late, demand a meeting with the head clerk and tell him the truth – that she is far too fabulous to be a common juror. She followed my advice to the letter and was excused. It all reminded me of when I was called myself. I was wearing dark glasses and a headscarf so as to appear incognito, but when my name was called in court, the judge realised I was The Mrs Cohen. I was immediately dismissed as it was thought I would be a distraction to the process of justice. Naturally, I was profoundly disappointed – I have always been a massive fan of Twelve Angry Men – but I managed to console myself with lunch at The Ivy.
I popped over to LA to see lovely little Natalie Portman, hard at work directing A Tale of Love and Darkness – an adaptation of Amos Oz’s book. I worry about Natalie - she insists on eating takeaway macrobiotic vegan food and I fear that the lack of meat and dairy has had a catastrophic effect on her ability to name her children. Her threeyear-old son is called Aleph and I have an awful feeling that the next one will be Bet. Nothing that a good salt beef sandwich or a little gefilte fish couldn’t sort out, but she has so far refused to bite. So worrying.
Another chap who has also been in trouble over his diet is Adam Richman, the cheery, chubby American host of Man v Food. Let me tell you that when you go round to Adam’s place, there is no shortage of snacks on offer but, but his attempts to lose a little of the puppy fat around his girth has been treated with disdain on social media, so much so that he launched into a tirade so lurid it made Andrew Strauss’s outburst at the weekend seem the height of tact. His new show has been postponed and he is in an awful state. Fortunately the salt beef sandwich that Natalie refused went down very well.
Roger Federer’s people got in touch at the weekend to invite me to Wimbledon. I had visions of being seated next to David and Victoria in the royal box. However it turned out that the Federer nanny was unwell and they needed someone responsible to look after the four children. So while Roger was playing five sets I had two sets of twins to look after. Though I’m a huge fan of Roger, I was almost glad when Novak sealed the victory. There are only so many monogrammed nappies a girl can change.
Will Aleph, three, be followed by Bet?